Intersections: The Ramayana and its Retellings: Deconstructing the Myth Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific Issue 45, April 2021 The Ramayana and its Retellings: Deconstructing the Myth Sharayu Shejale 1. In what can be seen as the climax of the long-running Hindutva project promised by Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, the ground-breaking ceremony of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya took place on 5 August 2020. A highly controversial move, especially given the background of the collapsing Indian economy and the larger spectre of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the Ram Mandir and the Ramayana have a longer history of being used as political and ideological tools for the Hindutva narrative. For instance, the immensely popular 1987 Hindi television serial, Ramanand Sagar's Ramayana, was telecast again after the announcement of the Coronavirus lockdown in India. In the late 1980s, many scholars and intellectuals had raised concerns about this televised version becoming the dominant narrative, and thus eclipsing other, diverse, contradictory tellings of the myth.[1] With eerie accuracy, historian Romila Thapar questioned the long-term political and ideological motives at work. Thapar argued that such representations were part of the state's nationalistic project to create a homogenised, uniform culture which was easy to control and identify with.[2] Thus, Rama and his mythology have increasingly come to be the face of a militant form of Hinduism. 2. The Ramayana is political, and always has been. Paula Richman gives three major reasons for this. First, it lays out an aspirational polity of 'Ramraj,' where the king practices absolute justice, and maintains order, prosperity and stability of the kingdom. Second, Rama is depicted as a purushottam (ideal man) and is an ideal for not only a king and citizen, but also for class, caste and gender hierarchies. Last, the vision of 'Ramraj' is utopian, and as with all utopias, encourages people to replicate it in real life—a project that mobilises state, societal and electoral institutions to do so.[3] This article will closely examine and deconstruct the second dimension (Rama is depicted as a purushottam (ideal man) and is an ideal for not only a king and citizen, but also for class, caste and gender hierarchies), primarily looking at gender, caste and their intersections. 3. The story of this Ayodhya's prince, however, is not monolithic, nor perfect, no matter how much the so-called 'Ram bhakts'[4] would like it to be. On the contrary, there is a continuous discourse and a long and prolific literary as well as oral tradition of retelling alternative versions of the Ramayana. The dominant Valmiki Ramayana is merely one amongst the numerous Ramayanas that exist across languages, cultures, geographies and religions—in both classical and folk narratives. Another interesting point to note is the complete erasure of the figure of Sita in the warped, nationalistic narrative which is being peddled. She is only brought up, if ever, as an example of the pativratā, the ideal wife. Along with this, questions of purity and chastity become important here, as are the ways they contribute and are constitutive of the edifice of Brahmanical patriarchy. 4. In the following article, I analyse how these questions are brought up and dealt with in different interpretations of the Ramayana, using two alternative modern retellings of the Ramayana. The first text is Tamil writer Ambai's famous short story, 'Forest,'[5] which is a part of her collection of short stories In a Forest, A Deer.[6] This story is not singular, but two stories intertwined with each other —one of Chenthiru, a contemporary woman who decides to leave her husband and her life in the http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue45/shejale.html[26/03/2021 11:52:56 am] Intersections: The Ramayana and its Retellings: Deconstructing the Myth city to find herself in a forest, and one of Sita, who decides to write her Sitayanam after her banishment to the forest. Ambai traces parallels between the two women, and how they finally free themselves from the shackles in which men trap them. My second primary text is the novel The Liberation of Sita by Telugu feminist poet and writer Volga.[7] Volga narrates the tale from the perspective of Sita as she looks back at her life. Volga focuses on other minor female characters in the Ramayana such as Ahalya, Surpanakha, Renuka and Urmila, and how these women help Sita arrive at self-realisation and help her to 'liberate' herself from Rama. 5. The rationale behind picking the texts that I have has multiple dimensions. First, they are contemporary retellings, and thus are easily available and accessible in terms of both logistics and understanding. Second, the very fact that there are contemporary retellings of a classical Sanskrit myth from the fourth century BCE, goes to show the substantial hold that the Ramayana has had and continues to have on popular imaginings and narratives. The Ramayana is thus told, retold, subverted, politicised and deconstructed across centuries, right up to the present. Finally, all the texts I have chosen are feminist re-imaginings and as such a critical engagement with the canon is essential in its analysis and deconstruction. 6. The academic literature that I use to argue my case can be classified into two broad thematic categories—the historical tradition of alternative retellings of the Ramayana, and the constitutive elements of Brahmanical patriarchy such as honour, purity, chastity and so on and how such structures are used to control women and their sexuality. These thematic categories subsume multiple sub-themes, which are not mutually exclusive. Alternative retellings 7. A.K. Ramanujan, in his ground-breaking essay 'Three hundred Ramayanas: Five examples and three thoughts on translation,'[8] explores different versions of the Ramayana—oral and literary, folk and classical, mediaeval and modern, that have existed over centuries, borders, languages and media. In classical Sanskrit itself, there are more than twenty-five versions. There are also some meta-Ramayanas that acknowledge the existence of numerous other Ramayanas[9] and play with this knowledge.[10] Even if the Valmiki Ramayana is taken to be the canon, and the same structure of events are followed, the style, narration, tone and texture, result in varying import and treatment of events and characters.[11] For instance, Valmiki's Rama is ultimately only a man—an ideal man with god-like qualities—but a man nevertheless, with all the implications of mortality. On the other hand, twelfth-century Tamil poet Kampan's Rama is clearly a divine being, whose morality and judgement are beyond reproach.[12] And these different interpretations influence the subsequent Ramayanas that have been written. The focus and the values transmitted through the epic also change with the shift in religion. Jain retellings of the Ramayana carry vastly different morals compared to Hindu versions.[13] Folk and tribal narratives, which are mostly oral, present radically different versions altogether which are often subversive. The media in which the myth is told is also diverse, from the Ram Lila traditions in Northern India, to folk shadow puppet plays in Kerala.[14] The focus also shifts to Sita more than Rama—the battle scenes are mentioned in passing while Sita's banishment is regaled in detail. In one Kannada folk narrative, Sita is the daughter of Ravana, who he sneezes out through his nose.[15] Such narratives touch upon themes of the story beyond which the canon ever conceived. Ramanujan argues that what is so radical are the differences between the different narratives that 'one conception is quite abhorrent to those who hold another' and that they are only similar in name, if that.[16] He further adds, Valmiki is said to have captured only a fragment of it [the Ramayana]. In this sense, no text is original, yet no telling is mere retelling – and the story has no closure, although it may be enclosed in a text. In India and in Southeast http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue45/shejale.html[26/03/2021 11:52:56 am] Intersections: The Ramayana and its Retellings: Deconstructing the Myth Asia, no one ever reads the Ramayana or the Mahabharata for the first time. The stories are there, 'always already'[17] 8. It is important to consider the internal, contextual politics of these pluralistic tellings in the Ramayana tradition. Ramanujan argues that the Ramayana has become a 'second language for a whole cultural area,' and this can be seen in the patterns that can be delineated across different tellings. While some versions are used to uphold and reinforce dominant caste, class and gender hierarchies, other versions are used to challenge them.[18] As an example, Richman draws attention to E. V. Ramasami's interpretation of the Ramayana. Ramasami heavily critiqued Valmiki's Ramayana and saw it as a thinly veiled historical account of North Indians (led by Rama) oppressing South Indians (led by Ravana.) Thus, through a rejection of the conventional tellings of the myth, he used the text as a political tool to construct a Dravidian identity and give supportive grounds to the Tamil separatist movement.[19] 9. There have also been versions of the Ramayana written by women which offer completely different perspectives. Most famous of these narratives include that of Chandrabati in Bengali, and Molla and Ranganayakamma in Telugu.[20] Molla, a woman and a Shudra,[21] wrote a perfect classical Ramayana, which was not allowed to be read in the Royal Court. Chandrabati's Ramayana told the story of Sita and heavily criticised Rama. In this narrative, Rama comes across as harsh, weak- willed and uncaring—a far cry from the purushottam he is supposed to be.